Beyond Repentance
by SSnapeAdvocate
Summary: WARNING! SEVERE SPOILER! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE COMPLETED HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE!Severus Snape’s Lament. One Shot.


Beyond Repentance

The aftermath of a murder

By: Jenny Stroup

WARNING! SEVERE SPOILER! DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE COMPLETED HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE!

My eyes opened like a shot, the shadows of my darkened bedroom coming into view more slowly. I froze under the covers, my ears prickling in anticipation of any sound at all, for I was sure that it was in fact a noise that had roused me. I waited.

BANG BANG BANG!

I was through my bedroom door before the third blow was laid upon the front. Wand in hand, I descended the stairs swiftly and with ease, my bare feet silent against the wooden steps. I looked to the door, where a dark silhouette could be seen through the tinted glass window. I raised my wand a little higher, taking slow, cautiouse steps forward.

No one who valued their life would open their door to anyone at this hour, due to the current state of things. The second war against Lord Voldemort had begun, and Death Eaters, as well as the Inferi that they controlled, were raiding homes and killing whomever crossed their path at an alarming rate. These were dark times indeed, and I'd be damned if I was going to become a victim of them.

"Leave now, sir, or I am afraid you will meet a most gruesome end!" I shouted at the door, wand at the ready. I watched as the silhouette moved closer to the door, the tip of his shoe brushing gently against it.

"Do not make me blast this door open, Evelyn!" A harsh whisper made it's way through the door jam. All the tension in my body melted away instantly, and was quickly replaced with a feeling of sheer annoyance.

"_Lumos_." I said lazily, lighting the room as I reached for the door handle. Pulling the door open, I was fully prepared to give quite the verbal lashing. Until I saw his face.

"Wha…." My voice caught in my throat as he pushed past me, entering my sitting room without invitation.

"Close the door. Now." He demanded, his back toward me as he stood in the middle of the room. I did as he commanded, my gaze never leaving his figure. I watched as he removed his cloak, throwing it into the nearest chair. I took one step forward, but halted when he held up his hand, still not looking at me.

"Do not come near me." His voice was strange. Hoarse, and weak, which was so very unlike his usual strong and confident timbre. I didn't listen, taking one more step forward. His body gave a great spasm, and in a motion that was so fast that it was almost invisible to the eye, he had grabbed a vase from the centre table and hurled it at the unsuspecting wall before him. I jumped backward with a small yelp, my eyes surely the size of Galleons.

"I SAID DON'T COME NEAR ME!" He screamed, finally turning to face me. His face was inhuman with rage as he pierced me with his cold, black eyes.

"Severus….What…?" I began, but my voice was drowned out as his tantrum continued. Taking hold of the edge of the centre table itself, Severus flipped it over, his force sending it halfway across the room. I promptly backed myself against the door as he violently began smashing every valuable and invaluable possession that currently resided in my sitting room. The sound of breaking glass and splintering wood were accompanied only by his shouts of rage, and grunts of brute force. As he smashed my favourite bauble with his bare hands, blood began dripping from his palms where the shards of glass had plunged through their calluses. He then stood quite still, though unable to stop the surge of ragged breathing that his emotional explosion had brought on. I didn't dare approach him.

"I had no choice…." He said, more to himself than to me as he stared down at his fresh abrasions. He began to shake his head slowly, and I somehow refrained from rushing to him as he suddenly dropped to his knees. His hands began to tremble as he continued to look upon them, which caused him to involuntarily make a fist. Severus Snape did not tremble.

"Severus…What has happened?" I managed to find my timid voice. He did not seem to hear me. He brought the fists slowly to his face, pushing them roughly against his eyes as he sat back on the floor, on which he proceeded to rock back and forth. I had never been so frightened in my life.

"The blood…" his voice was hardly audible, and his shoulders hunched at his words. "His blood on my hands!" He wailed.

"Who's blood, Severus? Tell me what has happened!" I insisted, despite being utterly horrified. He pulled his hands abruptly from his face, the smears of blood only heightening his look of pure loathing.

"THIS…!" he roared, ripping the sleeve off of his left arm so fiercely that buttons were flying in every direction. "THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED! THIS IS WHY HE IS DEAD!" He shrieked at me, causing me to stumble backward over my dressing gown. His Dark Mark was a deeper shade of black than I had ever seen it before, and I had seen it many times when the Dark Lord had summoned him from my bed. In a fit of madness, and to my complete revulsion, Severus picked up the largest shard of glass he could reach, and began slicing it across the flesh where his Dark Mark resided.

"SEVERUS, NO!" I screamed, diving for him as copious amounts of blood began spilling out of the wound and onto the floor. He continued, most determined to rip into his flesh, but quickly began to realize that the Mark itself was untouched, whereas the flesh surrounding it was beginning to look something like ground beef. I suppressed the urge to wretch as I grabbed Severus' wrist, ceasing the attack upon his now mutilated arm.

"It killed him, Evelyn! _I_ killed him!" Severus mewed as he looked into my eyes with a vulnerability that I never thought him capable of. "He died at my hand…the only man who trusted me…the only man that I cared for more than I cared for myself…" his face contorted a bit as heavy tears pushed their way to the brims of his lower eyelids, his body succumbing to a surge of convulsions.

I collapsed to my knees before him, a wave of shock crashing over me like a frigid gust of wind. My mouth dried, my eyes glazed over, and my line of sight slipped somewhere toward the wall just beyond Severus' head. This had to be a nightmare.

"You killed…Albus Dumbledore?" a voice sounding remarkably like my own asked him. My heart wrenched in my chest. Albus was gone. Albus Dumbledore, the greatest wizard to walk the earth, had been slain by the man that I loved. The man that I had trusted with my life, despite all evidence against him. He loved Albus Dumbledore above all others, including me. And the realization of what he had just confessed to me forced my body to back away from his, a look of complete abhorrence upon my face as tears poured from my eyes.

"Narcissa…she…I was foolish! Believed myself proficient in my abilities…after everything I have succeeded in, I thought that I could _do_ _anything_…But not this. Not Albus..." Severus growled, and soon proceeded to double over, dry heaving with a vast shudder. I backed away a little farther.

"What does Narcissa have to do with this?" I was shocked that I was able to speak to him at this moment. My tone was seething. and full of my obvious feeling of betrayal. I watched as his body crumpled further still toward the floor, the blood seeping from his arm soaking into his pant leg.

"An Unbreakable Vow. A vow to protect Draco from the end he would surely meet at the hand of the Dark Lord had I not…assisted him." He took a deep, rattled breath, lifting his head so that our eyes met.

"He was to…kill Albus, where Lucius had infinitely failed. My vow to Narcissa was to complete what Draco could not." He paused a moment, putting his hand over his fresh wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He shook his head vigorously.

"I pleaded with Albus! He was a fool to consider allowing me to fulfil the vow! I AGAIN and AGAIN I insisted on sacrificing myself! He had no right to take the fall for my insufferable mistake! A God has been lost to the world because he refused to let me, a worthless wretch who deserves a hell far beyond death, face my own consequences! HE LEFT ME NO CHOICE!" Severus barked, palpable wrath flaring in his misted eyes. I looked to the floor.

"Perhaps he gave you no choice because he didn't have one himself." I said in the smallest of voices. The room was deathly silent, and I dared to look back at Severus. His eyes were boring into mine, his nostrils flared as he took laboured breaths. I took that moment to move closer to him, ripping a piece of fabric from the bottom of my dressing gown to wrap his arm.

"If it had not been you, it would have been Draco. And if not Draco…" I paused, hesitating to reach for his wound. "The outcome was inevitable, and maybe Albus felt that if he were to die, it would be on his terms." I finished, moving Severus' hand away and covering the lesion gently. He winced, sucking in a breath through clenched teeth. He glared at me.

"That line of reasoning offers little reassurance." He hissed at me. I focused on dressing his arm, avoiding eye contact.

"I don't think you will ever have complete reassurance, Severus. I don't think any of us will." I said quietly, tears welling up in my eyes.

"No. But closure can be found." He said suddenly after a long silence. I looked at him, watching as he motioned the handle of his wand toward me.

"Kill me." He demanded, quite seriously and without blinking an eye. I glared at him with a confidence that seemed entirely out of place in the current situation. I grabbed the end of the wand, and with a flick of my arm, hurled it across the room.

"This world cannot afford to lose two noble men in one evening! Don't you dare ask me again!" I shouted, my hands balled into tight fists, a sob escaping my lips. I half expected him to strike me, or move to retrieve his wand. However, I watched his eyes roll to the back of his head as his body went limp, and he fell, almost gracefully, to the floor.

Albus Dumbledore's funeral was held at Hogwarts shortly after his death. The Daily Prophet was bombarded by articles and theories concerning the fallen Headmaster, which were matched only by the tremendous outcry of anger toward his murderer. The search for Severus Snape was world wide, even to the extent that Muggle government officials had been asked for assistance in searching for 'this extremely dangerous fugitive'. Anyone who encountered him was ordered to kill on sight.

Severus had remained in bed since the night he ended up in my sitting room. He was empty. The spark which fuelled the being that was once Severus Snape was gone. Previously a striking black, the shade and colour of his eyes were now a flat grey. Not even after he had returned to me so many times from a particularly malicious meeting with the Dark Lord had I ever seen him look so bad. Cruciatus seemed like a slap on the wrist in comparison to the endless torture that was penitence.

On the fourth day, I opened the door of my bedroom to tend to Severus' arm, and froze in the entrance.

He was gone.

One would think that I was used to him disappearing at random, often without telling me where he was going, or saying goodbye. Never knowing if I would see him alive again, I was constantly trying to come to grips with letting go of the man that I loved, which is a pain beyond measure. As I sat on the edge of the bed, burying my face in my hands, I wept.

Would anyone mourn the loss of Severus Snape?

Authors Note

I would like to give a special thanks to my best friend, and fellow author, Wade Scott. For without her keen intellect and sheer genius (not to mention her marvellous ability to talk down a thoroughly distraught, babbling woman who has just watched her hero falter), I would not have been able to come to grips with the underlying reality of Severus' actions. Wotcher, Tonks! You're the best!


End file.
